I Came, I Saw, I Wrote

John Clark checking in after having survived January, albeit barely. Unlike Florida, or Southern California (although that’s changing pretty quickly thanks to that fake-news climate stuff), we have distinctive seasons, even, at times, distinctive months. That is one of many reasons why I delight in writing about Maine. My essays in the no longer published Wolf Moon Journal were labors of love. My Right Minded, But Left of Center column in a now defunct Somerset County newspaper was equally fun to write. Granted, it cost the Hartland Public Library a few patrons, given its leftist leaning, but it also had a strong group of regular readers.

There are many reasons why Maine is so satisfying for a writer. I never cease to amaze myself with how many mental images I can dredge from my memory. Some recall events, some bring back sights, others pull real Maine characters from long ago. While every state has interesting people, I happen to believe more of them live here and if you’re respectful and a good listener, they are more than happy to share yarns and life experiences with you.

I call such memories, as well as current conversations with Mainers, a form of literary mining, somewhat akin to other forms of nontraditional mining. Consider, for example my penchant for ditch mining (picking up returnables from roadsides), coin mining (competing with my wife to find dropped coins), or a more recent one-lottery ticket mining. This one is turning out to be a lot of fun. Non-winning tickets have codes that can be entered online and accumulate points that can be redeemed for cool stuff. When I was the Hartland librarian, I accumulated enough points to give four chromebooks to the fourth grade class. They were all sharing two laptops at the time. Currently, I’m getting Amazon gift cards, getting books that no Maine library has, and after reading them, donating them to the Waterville Public Library.

This ‘do more with less’ mentality runs strong through rural Maine. I incorporate it, along with composites of people I know or remember, when creating interesting characters in stories. I’m wrapping up two short stories right now, one based on long ago family history, the other a horror tale with a main character modeled on someone I worked with 50+ years ago when I raked blueberries.

One other benefit of living in Maine is the size and geographic diversity. I’ve had the good fortune, whether for work or on family trips, to see most of rural Maine. That has allowed me to create fictional towns with features seen in the past, whether they be hills, valleys, waterways, or abandoned houses. It’s easy to pass by an empty home on a regular basis and start imagining how it came to be that way. Sometimes, I get the real story from folks who live nearby. It might be that the owner had no kin, sometimes the property is in a bitter tug-of-war between heirs who dislike and distrust each other.

I like old railroad beds for much the same reason. Imagining how it might have looked when an old steam locomotive passed by awestruck kids comes to mind often, as does my father’s reminiscences of great aunt Kate Burke. She owned the hardware store in Bingham and in the day, was able to travel to Boston on buying trips and return in comfort all the way home by rail.

Memories, imagination, conversations with interesting folks, driving on unexplored roads. These are some of the ways I come up with new stories. What are yours?